Today’s target for my bile and rage is Just Adventure+, a rather smaller site than last week’s Slashdot, but no less deserving of a good cussing.

Follow that link and you’ll feel like you’ve been smacked in the face with a horrible design unchanged since approximately 1989, mostly because that’s what will have just happened. I can overlook that – looks aren’t everything – but what’s this tagline? “The largest and most-visited adventure site on the Internet”? I don’t know what they base that on, but even a cursory comparison of the membership and posting figures displayed on their forums and those of their less shit competitors will disprove that. Dubious claims aren’t cool!

On to the primary purpose of any good gaming site, the reviews. They exist to tell you what’s hot and what’s not. Unfortunately, what’s not hot on Just Adventure+ is, apparently, Monkey Island 2, considered by everyone except them to be one of the high water marks of the genre. There are two reviews on JA+, and the highest mark is a B-. What’s that mean according to their review guide? It’s “a superior game”, but “lacking either the innovation or perfection required for a grade of ‘A’”. Hmmm.

That should be enough by itself, but hey! This is a rant! Let’s take one more of their reviews, this time with reference to a review I trust more from vastly superior site Adventure Gamers. The game: Hauntings of Mystery Manor.

Have a look at that review from Adventure Gamers. Looks a pretty lame game, doesn’t it? The sort of game someone could (and indeed, did) knock up in Adventure Game Studio by themselves? Yes. AG’s score of 1.5 stars (out of 5) looks entirely justified. Now let’s have a look at Just Adventure’s version.

“Nothing short of remarkable” it says. “Final grade: A” it says. That makes it “one of the best games available”, and it “should be on the shelf of every adventure gamer”, according to the grading system guide. Tally-Ho, when you wrote this review, did you have a crush? Are you the author’s mum? Why weren’t you edited into oblivion?

Again, as with Slashdot, it’s not so much the concept of the site I mind. Everyone is free to create their own little corner of the Web – I should know that. It’s the fact that JA+ loves to tout itself as the biggest and (by implication) best adventure gaming web site in existence, when it’s clearly rubbish, that rubs me up the wrong way. If a single person arrives at JA+ and think it’s representative of adventure gamers as a whole – basically undiscerning idiots who will welcome bad games as the second coming because they are “produced and published by ONE PERSON![!!!!]” – then JA+ has done everyone a great disservice.

Phew, that rant was a long time in coming. More cussings-in soon!

“Do you get paid for this shit?”

Slashdot is a horrible site, but for some reason I still feel compelled to visit it on a daily basis. The only thing worse than reading a story on Slashdot is reading a comment on Slashdot, but for some reason I end up doing that too. Why? I don’t know – probably the same reason I keep buying stuff from the iTunes Music Store, despite it repeatedly shagging me in the face in new and interesting ways. The concept of Slashdot is good, just like iTunes should be good in theory – but the execution, oh man.

I really wouldn’t mind so much if it was a little site run by one guy in his spare time – although there are countless such sites better produced than Slashdot – but this thing is huge. And owned by some big technology firm. But what do we get? Stories full of bollocks, people asking the same stupid questions every week (”how can I organise my books at home” just today!), and the ‘Funny’ comments. Oh, those ‘Funny’ comments. I think I must have broken my funnybone or something.

Their links to positive Linux stories (Linux nearly ready for your nan!) are often good for a laugh, at least. Now that’s funny.

Do they get paid for this shit? The sad answer is yes, they do.

That’s “facts”, that is.

I don’t want to give you some lame fact that you’ve all heard before, though! Instead, have this tidbit from the VideoGaiden blog, or whatever they want to call it:

“See that White Witch costume that Joanne was wearing in the Narnia review? That was the ACTUAL ONE from the classic BBC version of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. A bit of TV history, shipped up special from that London. What about that, eh?”

I recognised that costume, I did.

See that bit on the blog where they say they were in a meeting with the BBC about the future of VideoGaiden, yesterday? I’m hoping the meeting was more “please have a 500 part series on BBC1 starting next week” and less “piss off home.”

Can I have my Consolevania Christmas special soon, please? It is February.